Ah, Those Pesky Priorities
by Noraque
Summary: Shepard loves finding those rare resources. She'll stop what she's doing anywhere to get them, even in the middle of a battle! If the Collectors don't kill her, Jack just might. A chapter out of one of my longer fics.


Jack couldn't believe what she was seeing.

Here she was, in the depths of a Collector Ship; the _same_ Collector Ship she had seen on Horizon; the _same_ ship that had sent off the chain of events that got her here two years ago when spaced the ass of the first human Spectre. Shepard, Garrus and she were in the heart of the ship itself, having just learned that the Collectors were in fact Protheans recreated by the Reapers to suit their own sick-ass purposes; EDI had notified them that the Illusive Man had knowingly sent them right into Collector hands (big fucking surprise there- what the hell did you expect from Cerberus?) and right now they were battling their way through the waves of Collectors to get back to the hovercraft before the ship's weapons came back online and blew them straight into galactic hell.

And _what_ was the Saviour of the Galaxy doing?

Instead of blowing away the Collectors blocking their path from here to freedom, the commander was racing from place to place, eagerly opening up various cases to reveal valuable minerals and useless extra heavy weapon ammo. Not only that, she taking the time to hack and decrypt random consoles around the ship, trying to match up blocks of puzzles while the Collector drones fired highly-advanced big-ass guns at them!

"Shepard," Jack called from behind her place of cover, which happened to be the only bit of cover in the whole room that was shielding her from the Collectors heavy fire, "I don't mean to interrupt your strange sense of fun right in the middle of it, but what the _fuck_ are you doing?"

"Jack, this is amazing!" Shepard's delighted voice came over the sound of gunfire from somewhere across the room. "Do you realize how many random crates of valuable minerals we've come across in here? It's like the Collectors just _wanted_ us to find them lying around! I just found a crate containing two thousand units of Element Zero! This day just keeps getting better and better!"

"What the fuck do you need more Element Zero for?" Jack moved up out of cover just as Garrus' assault rifle took down the biotic barriers of a Collector that got too close for its own good. A quick pump her shotgun blew the alien away with a satisfying spray of what she assumed to be blood in the air. "You have way too much of the shit anyway! You've already upgraded my biotic implants and researched every single biotic project in the Tech Lab! Are you telling me hacking through consoles and collecting useless minerals is more important than saving our own asses?"

"Hah! Just got another crate of Platinum! Let's see- if I remember right, I only need twenty three thousand six hundred and fifty-two more units of Platinum to go before I can research the Cain heavy weapon. Hmm- maybe _this_ crate has some more…"

Jack gritted her teeth as she hunkered down beside Garrus. "I swear," she growled at the turian, "if I die in here because your old pal- the so-called 'Saviour of the fucking Galaxy'- spends her time looking for useless shit instead of blowing these sons of bitches to hell and back, I'm going to kill her myself! Then I'm going to kill that Cerberus bitch cheerleader Miranda for bringing her back- which I may do even if I survive this. Then I'm going to find the Illusive Man and kill him just for _thinking_ of bringing her back. Come to think of it, why don't I just kill everyone on board the Normandy and save myself the headache later on?"

Garrus popped up from cover and delivered another volley of fire from his rifle, coming back into cover just as his shields went down. "I hate to be the one to break it to you Jack," he said as he popped out a heat sink, "mostly since one blink from you could probably rip me in half, but right now we have bigger things to concentrate on than Shepard's liberal sense of priority in high-intensity combat situations."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means we need to deal with that huge Scion that's flanking our left right now."

Turning towards the area he was indicating, Jack muttered unprintable obscenities under her breath. She knew her biotics would be useless against the Scion's heavy armour, and Garrus' weapon damage and concussive shot would only be so effect against the creature. They would need someone whose weapons and powers were designed to take out the Scion's armour. For a second, Jack wished Mordin or even Miranda were here. Mordin's Incinerate ability should, as the salarian so often put it, 'burn through any armour'; and while she was no fan of Miranda, she had to admit the cheerleader's Warp ability was right now the strongest on the team and could severely damage any armoured target. Why the hell had Shepard brought the convict along when she had to have anticipated this?

"Look Shepard," Jack yelled to the unseen commander, "I know how much you love searching for minerals. Shit, if we get out of this alive, I'll help you with it later on! But right now we have a big fucking Scion moving in on our left and we need help taking it out!"

"Oh, alright." Shepard huffed as she jogged over towards their position; her armour made a clanging noise every time she took a step which sounded suspiciously like heavy weapons ammo and mineral containers clashing together. She was just about ten feet away from the pair when something to her left caught her attention; her eyes lit up and she made a break for whatever it was.

"Shepard?"

"It's another one of those consoles, Jack! If it's anything like the last few I've seen on this ship, it's bound to have at least a hundred credits in it! Hmm, it seems to be heavily encrypted. Ah well, I'll just get to work on the long code selection process…"

Jack ground her teeth, and was seriously considering turning her shotgun on her so-called 'leader' when Garrus let out a cry of triumph. "Got it! Just one more Collector drone to kill and then we just need to deal with the Scion."

"About fucking time." Jack slid her shotgun away and pulled out her armour-piercing heavy pistol. "I was seriously considering slapping her ass with a Pull and seeing how well she flew. Guess I'll have to make do seeing how well a Collector bitch flies."

Garrus shot the biotic a reproachful look as he pulled out his sniper rifle. "Look, we're all a little tense right now. Let's just deal with this and get the hell out of here. I'm going to keep the Scion back with my sniper rifle and deal as much damage to it as possible while you deal with the Collector drone. As long as nothing happens to reinforce it and make it a more difficult enemy, you should be able to…"

'_Direct intervention is necessary…'_

Jack's body sparked and crackled with a dangerous blue aura…

"_SHEPARD!"_

**Please review and give me feedback!**


End file.
